Slowly getting a head. Also, the start of a rabbit and a pile of timber.

Been a very productive week. I really love being in the new studio. I’ve even found time to do some music and paint a bit, in between apoxie setting times.

So this week I have gotten the head sculpt completed and baked (sculpey) and attached it to a neck made out of latex. Next up will be hair. I am undecided as to wether to sculpt hair out of aves apoxie sculpt, or to use real hair like I had planned originally. I tempted to go with the sculpted hair for stylistic reasons, as the eye brows will be made out of Van Aken plasticine to allow for easier animation. I’m thinking that the Van Aken may be a good option for the eye lids too, otherwise I may have to do replacements. Decisions, decisions.

Sorry, it’s not the best pic, more to come later;

I have also made a start on sculpting the rabbit, which will need to be animatable, for the hat pull part of the performance. I’m finding this a good logistical challenge as I do not have the budget to run foam latex, so I will make a two part mold and pour liquid latex to create a sort of skin in which the armature will sit, then stuff it with cotton wool or something. The trick seems to be to get creases in all the right places in order to make the skin move in the direction it should when the body is flexed, otherwise it will pop out in weird shapes. It’s a bit of a “finger’s crossed” approach I am taking on it.

Here is the base sculpt, there are still a fair few hours of work needed on it though obviously;

You will notice the latex neck on my characters head in the background too. Figured it would be good to do part of the chest too so I can undo the characters top button and loosen his tie.

And lastly, I finally bit the bullet and did a massive timber shop. I came home with a huge load of wood and can now begin to assemble the animation stage, as well as beginning on set construction. Going to be a full on few months getting ready too shoot.

(to give you an idea of how much wood that is, the pink bits are 20ft (6m) lengths…)